A
chocolate chip cookie, or
Toll House Cookie, is a drop cookie that originated in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and features
chocolate chipChocolate chips are small chunks of chocolate. They are often sold in a round, flat-bottomed teardrop shape. They are available in numerous sizes, from large to miniature, but are usually around 1 cm in diameter...
s as its distinguishing ingredient. The traditional recipe combines a dough composed of butter and both brown and white sugar with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Variations include recipes with other
types of chocolateChocolate is a range of products derived from cocoa , mixed with fat and finely powdered sugar to produce a solid confection...
or additional ingredients, such as
nutsNut is a general term for the large, dry, oily seeds or fruit of some plants. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and...
or
oatmealOatmeal is ground oat groats , or a porridge made from this product...
.
The chocolate chip cookie was accidentally developed by Ruth Wakefield in 1930.
A
chocolate chip cookie, or
Toll House Cookie, is a drop cookie that originated in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and features
chocolate chipChocolate chips are small chunks of chocolate. They are often sold in a round, flat-bottomed teardrop shape. They are available in numerous sizes, from large to miniature, but are usually around 1 cm in diameter...
s as its distinguishing ingredient. The traditional recipe combines a dough composed of butter and both brown and white sugar with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Variations include recipes with other
types of chocolateChocolate is a range of products derived from cocoa , mixed with fat and finely powdered sugar to produce a solid confection...
or additional ingredients, such as
nutsNut is a general term for the large, dry, oily seeds or fruit of some plants. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and...
or
oatmealOatmeal is ground oat groats , or a porridge made from this product...
.
History
The chocolate chip cookie was accidentally developed by Ruth Wakefield in 1930. She owned the
Toll House InnToll House Inn of Whitman, Massachusetts, was established in 1930 by Kenneth and Ruth Graves Wakefield. The original toll house had been built in 1709 and had a rich history of providing a night's solace to weary travelers...
, in
WhitmanWhitman is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,882 at the 2000 census.The village of Auburnville is located at the southwest edge of Whitman.- History :...
,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
, a very popular restaurant in the 1930s. The restaurant's popularity was not just due to its home-cooked style meals; her policy was to give diners a whole extra helping of their entrées to take home with them and a serving of her homemade cookies for dessert. Her cookbook,
Toll House Tried and True Recipes, was published in 1936 by M. Barrows & Company,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and included the recipe "Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie", for what have since been widely called Toll House cookies.
Nestlé marketing
Wakefield is said to have been making chocolate
cookieIn the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat-baked treat, containing milk, flour, eggs, and sugar, etc. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have different...
s, and, on running out of regular baker's chocolate, substituted for it broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate from
NestléNestlé S.A. is a multinational packaged food company founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, and listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange with a turnover of over 87 billion Swiss francs...
, thinking that it would melt and mix into the batter. It clearly did not, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Wakefield sold the recipe to Nestlé in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips. Every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips sold in
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
has a variation (butter vs. margarine is now a stated option) of her original recipe printed on the back.
During
WWIIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, GIs from
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
who were stationed overseas shared the cookies they received in care packages from back home, with soldiers from other parts of the U.S. Soon, hundreds of GIs were writing home asking their families to send them some Toll House Cookies, and Wakefield was soon inundated with letters from around the country asking for her recipe. Thus began the nation-wide craze for the chocolate chip cookie.
Toll House employees' account
A different history of the cookie derives from George Boucher, who was at one time head chef at the Toll House Inn, and his daughter,
Carol Cavanagh, who also worked there. Contradicting Nestlé's claim that Wakefield put chunks of chocolate into cookie dough hoping they would melt, the daughter stated that the owner, already an accomplished chef and author of a cookbook, knew enough about the properties of chocolate to realize it would not melt and mix into the batter while baking. Boucher said that the vibrations from a large
HobartHobart is a manufacturer of commercial equipment used in the foodservice and grocery industry. The company manufactures food preparation machines for cutting, slicing and mixing, cooking equipment, refrigeration units, warewashing and waste disposal systems, and weighing, wrapping and labeling...
electric mixer dislodged bars of Nestlé's chocolate stored on the shelf above the mixer so they fell into the sugar cookie dough it was mixing, then broke them up and mixed the pieces into it. He claimed to have overcome Wakefield's impulse to discard the dough as too badly ruined to waste effort baking them, leading to the discovery of the popular combination.
Present day
Although the Nestlé's Toll House recipe is the most widely known, every brand of chocolate chips ("semi-sweet chocolate morsels," in Nestlé parlance) sold in the U.S. and Canada contains a variant of the chocolate chip cookie on its packaging, and almost all baking-oriented
cookbookA cookbook is a book that contains information on cooking. It typically contains a collection of recipes, and may also include information on ingredient origin, freshness, selection and quality.-History:...
s will contain at least one type of recipe.
Practically all commercial bakeries offer their own version of the cookie in packaged cooked or ready-to-bake forms. There are at least three national (U.S./
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
) chains that sell freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in
shopping mallA shopping mall, shopping centre or shopping center is a building or multiple buildings consisting of a complex of shops representing leading merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a convenient parking area – a modern,...
s and standalone retail locations. Several businesses—including
Doubletree'Doubletree is an international chain of full-service hotels and resorts trademarked by the Hilton Worldwide. There are currently 218 properties, servicing 54,126 rooms throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, China and since April 2008, the United Kingdom...
hotels,
CitibankCitibank is a major international bank, founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York. Citibank is now the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup, one of the largest companies in the world...
,
AlohaAloha Airlines was an American airline headquartered in Honolulu CDP, City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, operating from a hub at Honolulu International Airport...
, and
Midwest AirlinesMidwest Airlines is an airline subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings based in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, operating from the city's General Mitchell International Airport...
—offer freshly baked cookies to their patrons to differentiate themselves from their competition.
There is an
urban legendAn urban legend, urban myth, or urban tale, more properly a "'contemporary legend'" is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them...
about
Neiman MarcusNeiman Marcus is a luxury specialty retail department store, operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and competes with other exclusive department stores such as Barneys New York, Bloomingdale's, and Saks Fifth Avenue...
' chocolate chip cookie recipe that has gathered a great deal of popularity over the years.
To honor the cookie's creation in the state, on July 9, 1997,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
designated the chocolate chip cookie as the Official State Cookie, after it was proposed by a third-grade class from
Somerset, MassachusettsSomerset is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 18,234 at the 2000 census. It is the birthplace and hometown of Clifford Milburn Holland , the chief engineer and namesake of the Holland Tunnel in New York City.- History :Somerset was first settled in 1677 on...
.
Composition and variants
Chocolate chip cookies are commonly made with white sugar;
brown sugarBrown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content or produced by the addition of molasses to refined white sugar.Brown...
;
flourFlour is a powder made of cereal grains or roots. It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many civilizations, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
; a small portion of
saltA salt, in chemistry, is an ionic compound, and can result from the neutralization reaction of acids and bases. Salts are ionic compounds composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
;
eggsAn egg is a round or oval body laid by the female of any number of different species, consisting of an ovum surrounded by layers of membranes and an outer casing, which acts to nourish and protect a developing embryo and its nutrient reserves...
; a
leavening agentA leavening agent is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action which lightens and softens the finished product...
such as
baking powderBaking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods such as muffins, cakes, scones and North American biscuits. Baking powder works by releasing carbon dioxide gas into a batter or dough through an acid-base reaction, causing bubbles in...
; a
fatFats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and largely insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are generally triesters of glycerol and fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at normal room temperature, depending on their structure and composition...
, typically
butterButter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying...
or
shorteningShortening is a semisolid fat used in food preparation, especially baked goods, and is so called because it promotes a "short" or crumbly texture . Shortening is basically just fat or lard from an animal or vegetable...
;
vanilla extractVanilla extract is a solution containing the flavor compound vanillin . Pure vanilla extract is made by extracting from vanilla beans in an alcoholic solution. In order for a vanilla extract to be called pure, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that the solution contain a minimum of...
; and semi-sweet chocolate pieces. Some recipes also include
milkMilk is an opaque white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It provides the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. The early lactation milk is known as colostrum, and carries the mother's antibodies to the baby. It can reduce...
or
nutsNut is a general term for the large, dry, oily seeds or fruit of some plants. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and...
(such as chopped walnuts) in the
doughDough is a paste made out of any cereals or leguminous crops by mixing flour with a small amount of water and/or other liquid. This process is a precursor to making a wide variety of foodstuffs, particularly breads and bread-based items , including flatbreads, and pancakes, noodles, crusts,...
.
Depending on the ratio of ingredients, mixing and cooking times, some recipes are optimized to produce a softer, chewy style cookie while others will produce a crunchy/crispy style. Regardless of ingredients, the procedure for making the cookie is fairly consistent in all recipes: First, the sugars and fat are
creamedCreaming is used to refer to several different culinary processes.- In baking :Creaming, in baking, is the technique of blending ingredients — usually granulated sugar — together with a solid fat like shortening or butter. The technique is most often used in making buttercream, cake...
, usually with a
wooden spoonA wooden spoon is a spoon made from wood, commonly used in food preparation. The wooden spoon is also sometimes used in soap making and discipline.-History:...
or an electric mixer. The eggs and vanilla extract are added next followed by the flour and the leavener. Depending on the additional flavoring, its addition to the mix will be determined by the type used:
peanut butterPeanut butter is a food paste made from ground dry roasted peanuts. Major consumer brand peanut butter contains hydrogenated vegetable oil to stabilize it and prevent oil separation, salt to prevent spoilage, and dextrose and other sweeteners to enhance taste. Peanut butter marketed as Natural, or...
will be added with the wet ingredients while cocoa powder would be added with the dry ingredients. The titular ingredient, chocolate chips, as well as nuts are typically mixed in towards the end of the process to minimize breakage, just before the cookies are scooped and positioned on a cookie sheet. Most
cookie doughCookie dough refers to a blend of cookie ingredients which has been mixed into a solid yet malleable form but has not yet been hardened by heat. The dough is often then separated and the portions baked to individual cookies, or eaten as is....
is baked, although some eat the dough as is, or use it as an addition to vanilla
ice creamIce cream or ice-cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners. In some cases, artificial flavourings and colorings are used in...
to make
chocolate chip cookie dough ice creamChocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is an increasingly common ice cream flavor in which unbaked chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough is embedded in vanilla- or cream-flavored ice cream.-History:...
.
Common variants
- The M&M cookie, or party cookie, replaces the chocolate chips with M&M's
M&M's are candy-coated pieces of milk chocolate with the letter "m" printed on them, produced by Mars, Incorporated. Popular in the United States and many other countries, several variations of the candies exist, including milk chocolate, peanut, peanut butter, mint, dark chocolate , and almond....
candies (an American candy similar to the British Smarties). This recipe uses shortening as the fat.
- The chocolate chocolate chip cookie uses a dough that is chocolate flavored by the addition of cocoa
Cocoa is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of the cacao tree, from which chocolate is made. "Cocoa" can often also refer to the drink commonly known as hot chocolate; to cocoa powder, the dry powder made by grinding cocoa seeds and removing the cocoa butter from the dark, bitter cocoa...
or melted chocolate. Variations on this cookie include replacing chocolate chips with white chocolate White chocolate is a confection of sugar, cocoa butter, and milk solids. The melting point of cocoa butter is high enough to keep white chocolate solid at room temperature, yet low enough to allow white chocolate to melt in the mouth....
or peanut butterPeanut butter is a food paste made from ground dry roasted peanuts. Major consumer brand peanut butter contains hydrogenated vegetable oil to stabilize it and prevent oil separation, salt to prevent spoilage, and dextrose and other sweeteners to enhance taste. Peanut butter marketed as Natural, or...
chips.
- The macadamia chip cookie has macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips. It is a signature cookie of Mrs. Fields
Mrs. Fields Famous Brands is a franchisor in the snack food industry, with Mrs. Fields and TCBY as its core brands. Through its franchisees’ retail stores, it is one of the largest retailers of freshly baked, on-premises specialty cookies and brownies in the US and the largest retailer of...
bakeries.
- The chocolate chip peanut butter cookie replaces the vanilla flavored dough with a peanut butter
Peanut butter is a food paste made from ground dry roasted peanuts. Major consumer brand peanut butter contains hydrogenated vegetable oil to stabilize it and prevent oil separation, salt to prevent spoilage, and dextrose and other sweeteners to enhance taste. Peanut butter marketed as Natural, or...
flavored one.
- Other variations include different sizes and shapes of chocolate chips, as well as dark or milk chocolate chips. These changes lead to differences in both flavor and texture. There are also vegan
Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans endeavor not to use or consume animal products of any kind. The most common reasons for becoming a vegan are ethical commitment or moral conviction concerning animal rights,...
chocolate chip cookies.
Popular brands
- Blue Chip Cookies
Blue Chip Cookies is a chain of bakeries with headquarters in Loveland, Ohio, and dozens of locations, mostly in the Midwestern United States...
- Chips Ahoy!
Chips Ahoy! is a brand of chocolate chip cookies made by Nabisco. They are widely sold in the United States, Latin America , South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Portugal and Australia...
(NabiscoNabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks, including brands such as Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons, Mallomars, Oreos, Premium Crackers, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Social Tea, Nutter Butter, Peek Freans, Lorna Doone, Famous Chocolate Wafers and Chicken in a Biskit,...
)
- Chips Deluxe
Chips Deluxe is a brand of chocolate chip cookies made by the Keebler Company .-Varieties:* Original Chips Deluxe* Rainbow Chips Deluxe* Soft 'n' Chewy Chips Deluxe* Chocolate Lovers Chips Deluxe...
(KeeblerThe Keebler Company is the second-largest cookie and cracker manufacturer in the United States. Founded in 1853, it has produced numerous baked snacks. Keebler has marketed its brands such as Cheez-Its , Chips Deluxe, Club Crackers, E.L...
)
- Famous Amos
-History:Wally Amos, an Air Force veteran who worked as a talent agent with the William Morris Agency, would send home-baked chocolate chip cookies to celebrities to entice them to meet with him and maybe sign a deal to be represented by the William Morris company....
- Mrs. Fields
Mrs. Fields Famous Brands is a franchisor in the snack food industry, with Mrs. Fields and TCBY as its core brands. Through its franchisees’ retail stores, it is one of the largest retailers of freshly baked, on-premises specialty cookies and brownies in the US and the largest retailer of...
- Otis Spunkmeyer
Otis Spunkmeyer Inc. is a baked goods distribution company widely known for its name and flagship line of muffins and cookies. Although a relatively small company, Otis Spunkmeyer has enjoyed a large amount of success in the industry, with clients ranging from small family-owned businesses and...
- Pepperidge Farm
Pepperidge Farm is a commercial bakery in the U.S. founded in 1937 by Margaret Rudkin, who named the brand after her family's property in Fairfield, Connecticut, which in turn was named for the pepperidge tree, Nyssa sylvatica...
External links